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This seems to just push the question one level deeper. If African countries are poorly managed, why us that? What causes, for example, European countries to

This seems to just push the question one level deeper. If African countries are poorly managed, why us that? What causes, for example, European countries to be managed better at scale than African countries?

_8j50 5y ago
Many factors. Post-colonial divisions resulting in continual social strife and unstable governments. Agrarian economies, lack of education because of poverty. Basically: It is expensive to be poor, especially when fighting others endlessly. The west pushing democracy doesn't help either. It's not great when the majority can't even read and large chunk don't even have electricity while a few in cities have iPhones and western media. Look what totalitarianism did for china. Not that I support china/ccp but they lifted themselves up from poverty largley thanks to the unified vision and execution of a stable central government. In the US there is all this talk of equity vs equality. Same thing in Africa, they're catching up on self determination, especially now that China is offering alternatives to the west for commerce and other relations (despite their predictable malice)
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
  Again I don't feel like that's pushing at the real root of the question. Maybe it's impossible to know and you just go round and round in circles, but what lets China create a stable central government and unified vision but not Africa? And on the other hand, Europe seems to have industrialized well without a centralized vision. After all Europe is a group of separate countries each with distinct languages and governance. There is the EU but that came post-industrialization.
- rendall 5y ago
  > they lifted themselves up from poverty largley thanks to the unified vision and execution of a stable central government. No. They lifted themselves up from poverty by industrializing and trading cheap labor. This was irrespective of living under a corrupt, autocratic, extractive regime. And, now, because there were no stable institutions through which people could invest their savings, China is in an economic tailspin as their housing bubble popped.
  - _8j50 5y ago
    How can you trade cheap labor if people vote to not have cheap labor? In reality the people will vote for one good speaker that may not be competent because he sounds good and makes right promises. Lack of education and literacy would prevent them from even knowing that industrialization and cheap labor is good in the long run as opposed to sticking to agriculture like their ancestors. China struggled with famines like african nations too, the cycle you see there where someone takes power in the name of communism or democracy but is just an imperialist dictator would have crippled china just as well. It was in fact their central government that coordinated nation wide changes and forced terrible but profitable laws like the one child rule. China being able to have a housing bubble is a miracle to the Chinese in itself. You think if china as a first world country in crisis but a but over a decade ago it was a 3rd world country needing aid from the US to feed people. They don't put up with the CCP because they agree with its politics, they do so because they feel chauvinism/national pride over their great transformation and like their economic prosperity. Much like how americans never mess with the messed up two-party pseudo-democracy.
    - rendall 5y ago
      My response was to your statement that China's prosperity is due to the vision and execution of their government. I dispute that. Every nation that has ever industrialized experienced similar leaps in prosperity, irrespective of their government. Britain, the US, Japan, Russia, Korea, etc all had different forms of government, but similar leaps in prosperity when their societies moved from agriculture to industry. China became prosperous despite their government, not because of it. The economic failure the Chinese endure now is directly due to the extractive policies of their government, however. This is clear.

_8j50 5y ago

Many factors. Post-colonial divisions resulting in continual social strife and unstable governments. Agrarian economies, lack of education because of poverty. Basically: It is expensive to be poor, especially when fighting others endlessly. The west pushing democracy doesn't help either. It's not great when the majority can't even read and large chunk don't even have electricity while a few in cities have iPhones and western media. Look what totalitarianism did for china. Not that I support china/ccp but they lifted themselves up from poverty largley thanks to the unified vision and execution of a stable central government. In the US there is all this talk of equity vs equality. Same thing in Africa, they're catching up on self determination, especially now that China is offering alternatives to the west for commerce and other relations (despite their predictable malice)

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
Again I don't feel like that's pushing at the real root of the question. Maybe it's impossible to know and you just go round and round in circles, but what lets China create a stable central government and unified vision but not Africa? And on the other hand, Europe seems to have industrialized well without a centralized vision. After all Europe is a group of separate countries each with distinct languages and governance. There is the EU but that came post-industrialization.
rendall 5y ago
> they lifted themselves up from poverty largley thanks to the unified vision and execution of a stable central government. No. They lifted themselves up from poverty by industrializing and trading cheap labor. This was irrespective of living under a corrupt, autocratic, extractive regime. And, now, because there were no stable institutions through which people could invest their savings, China is in an economic tailspin as their housing bubble popped.
- _8j50 5y ago
  How can you trade cheap labor if people vote to not have cheap labor? In reality the people will vote for one good speaker that may not be competent because he sounds good and makes right promises. Lack of education and literacy would prevent them from even knowing that industrialization and cheap labor is good in the long run as opposed to sticking to agriculture like their ancestors. China struggled with famines like african nations too, the cycle you see there where someone takes power in the name of communism or democracy but is just an imperialist dictator would have crippled china just as well. It was in fact their central government that coordinated nation wide changes and forced terrible but profitable laws like the one child rule. China being able to have a housing bubble is a miracle to the Chinese in itself. You think if china as a first world country in crisis but a but over a decade ago it was a 3rd world country needing aid from the US to feed people. They don't put up with the CCP because they agree with its politics, they do so because they feel chauvinism/national pride over their great transformation and like their economic prosperity. Much like how americans never mess with the messed up two-party pseudo-democracy.
  - rendall 5y ago
    My response was to your statement that China's prosperity is due to the vision and execution of their government. I dispute that. Every nation that has ever industrialized experienced similar leaps in prosperity, irrespective of their government. Britain, the US, Japan, Russia, Korea, etc all had different forms of government, but similar leaps in prosperity when their societies moved from agriculture to industry. China became prosperous despite their government, not because of it. The economic failure the Chinese endure now is directly due to the extractive policies of their government, however. This is clear.